A Bullish Disaster - And We're Not Talking About the Stock Market

Yesterday was the cow's turn to be butchered. He was a great cow! Our family loved to go down, feed the pig, and then let the cow lick the bucket. He was so nice and he let you pet him all he wanted. We love God's creation and this bull was one of our favorite animals. We will miss him! Which makes this story all the more difficult to write about.

And now...for the story behind the first day of the butchering procedure. If you like animals and cry when reading sad stories about how an animal could die, do NOT read this. It did not go as expected.

It started by unleashing the cow. He walked well up to the same place where we butchered the pig. We started to tie him up to a tree, but it was decided to move him to the same cement post closer to where he would be field-dressed. They didn't tie his head real tight and that meant that he could move around a bit (too much, as you will soon see).

All of the other cows that have been butchered here lately have been killed with, at most, two .22 shots from the same old revolver used on the pig last time. But this time, the first six shots from that gun, didn't have much of an affect. Mr. Kyrk had to go back home and get more. The bull started to realize that he didn't like guns pointed at him. Pastor Baker came down (he could see us working from his office window) to talk to Mr. Kyrk about using a larger gun.

Mr. Kyrk got a .38 handgun from Pastor Baker and after one shot in the head (the 7th overall - or it may have been the 8th or 9th), the cow started to get a little more upset. I got blood splattered on my face after this shot. People gathered around to watch what was happening - it was a spectacle. All of the shots went in between either the eyes or into near the ear. He tangled his legs a little in the barb wire and then ended up pulling the cement post out of the ground. At this point people started to get away rather quickly.

We gave chase and followed him all of the way back to his home/pen (about 200-300 yards). Once there, Mr. Kyrk fired a shot from about 10 feet away and then he moved a little and laid down - right into his pen. It was as if he wanted to start the whole day over back in his pen - he was home now. Mr. Kyrk got closer and fired another shot. The bull got up and then started to go down the terraced mountain - just about the worst thing for us that he could do.

He was close to a deep pit so we had to get him away. Through much effort and determining what to do, we got him away from the pit in the side of the mountain. I was sure that we would have to figure a way to get him up the side of the mountain after he died here. I was thinking that he might die and roll all the way down the mountain. He was still standing and showing that he had enough energy left, so we tied a rope to him and led him up the mountain using the best path possible.

He came willingly. We went straight to the big tree we almost tied him to initially and tied his head real close to the tree so he couldn't move. One shot in the head behind the horns and he went down real fast. It was finally over.

They then field dressed him.

Somewhere in my story I missed a few shots, but there was a total of 13 shots (if I remember correctly) that went into his head and the last one was the best one. The story in my head is, of course, much more in depth and there is no way that I can convey the feelings of how things went. A number of us had put ourselves in harms way a few times - who's to know how a bull shot in the head a dozen times should or will act. It did not go as we planned. After every shot, we were thinking that it would be the last one. It could have been much worse - he could have done some very bad things when he got lose.

Here are some pictures (the videos are too big to load).

Here is one right before the final shot:



Here is a good shot of the four stomachs all together - now you know why their stomach is so large:


Today we'll put our butchering hats on.